Morocco

The title of this post should rightfully be "And then I crapped my pants" because whatever the Babies B did in Morocco, it seemed to either start or end with the crapping of the pants. Who knew that laundry detergent would be the most critical item packed, that and of course the golden binkies, I am sure we wouldn't have remained sane without those. Number three critical item or should I say person to bring along... sherpa ie. grammy, without her we may never have left Boston.

Without a painful blow by blow I thought I would rather touch upon the highlights and lowlights of the trip. Iman set the tone as we sat in Logan airport waiting to board the plane. I fed her and then she proceeded to not only crap her pants, but mine as well. I had a puddle of poo in my lap. Nothing so glamorous as walking through logan airport looking for a bathroom with crapped pants as an adult. Also, not the easiest thing to wash out while wearing said pants.

The babies flew really well, we weren't the parents with the babies everyone hates screaming and crying, they were a little fussy, but did take some naps during the flight. We arrived in Casablanca and took the rest of the day to rest, recover and visit with some of Amine's family. The next day we set off for Oujda via car. We thought it would be a 6 hour trip, but between traffic, getting lost in Rabat, or was it Meknes? and windy roads stuck behind very slow trucks, it ended up being 10 hours. The lowlight of the trip was seeing a dead body in the road and realizing 10 hours is entirely too long for babies to remain happy in carseats. The babies B had their first taste of Moroccan freedom of the roads by sitting in my and Grammy's arms from Fez to Oujda. Terrible, but you do what works, and that worked.

The next few days were a blur of visiting and eating, two of the most prevalent activities during our trip other than the before mentioned crapping of pants. We took a day trip to Saidia, the beach town nearby and the babies met their aunts Samia and Salima as well as two of the cutest little cousins, Sid Hamed and Ilias.
Back in Oujda we attended the wedding of another cousin. The babies were subjected to some very loud live musicians. One had a long brass horn that looked like it should be on the Ricola cough drop ad. Iman did not appreciate the horn playing and spent much of the time either crying or hanging in the back courtyard recovering. Bibi showed his Moroccan flair for music hanging out like a cool kitten and even falling asleep when two of his new admirers fanned him like a Roman emperor.

We spent the next weekend at the beach again where the babies were babtized by the Mediterranean Sea. Iman loved the beach and they both took nice little naps in the shade with mommy and grammy while daddy got to play in the water with all the other kids. Lowlight of the beach trip was being so hot at the house and not sleeping at all until we brought the babies out to the roof and slept outside on a mattress. The babies loved it and fell asleep right away, but Amine and I laughed and chatted about the whole scene. He reminded me of our wedding vows when he said "welcome to 'for worse'"

Before we knew it, it was time to start back to Casablanca to sadly return our sherpa to the states. We left with enough time to see a few sites on the way and break the long drive in two days rather than one. We stopped in Fez where we had some McDonald's fine dining, Bibi performed required daily crapping of pants on the way to the souk and got a diaper change in the trunk on our luggage. Never would have pictured that to be a part of the trip. Babies experienced their frist trip to a Souk which thankfully was uneventful, we wound through the streets of old Fez for a few hours in 100+F weather and survived.

The next day we stopped through Voloubolis to see some ancient Roman ruins in even more ridiculously hot weather, somewhere over 110 F, but who's counting. We did some shopping outside of Rabat and then returned to Casablanca.

We were all very sad to bring Grammy to the airport the next morning. We spent the next few days in Casablanca visiting family and seeing a few sites... the really big mosque, a nearby beach town, and the souk in the old city. Amine and I got a little antsy and made a last minute trip down to Marrakech with his mom and Aunt Shaira. This was definitely the highlight of the trip. We stayed at a five star hotel, I got a massage, we had lovely dinner and breakfast buffets... all you can eat. I did my American duty by showing everyone what all you can eat means here... we take those words very literally. We had a very nice horse and carriage ride around Marrakech and our crazy driver even led the carriage through the souk in streets barely wide enough for us let alone the innocent people on foot who had the misfortune of thinking it was a pedestrian only street. I really wish I had a video camera for that ride. We hung out by the pool until bedtime.

The next day it was entirely too hot to take the babies to the souk, but we did anyway. It was hard to enjoy any of it or shop, I was more concerned about staying in the shade as much as possible and using all of my strength to carry Iman around in the Bjorn. Hot and sweaty as she was, she didn't seem to mind much, sleeping through most of it. So those are the highlights and lowlights, I have done some political editing leaving out a few negative experiences and trying to focus on what was good about the trip. We survived, the babies travelled really well and they met 90% of Amine's extended family with several interesting culteral experiences to boot. Now I am off to call Air France yet again to try and track down Poor Bibi's Maxi Cosi (car seat).

Maybe that was a painful blow by blow... I swear I edited. My camera battery died on the way back to Casablanca, so no pictures after that unfortunately. I will try to post a part deux with videos of my mom shaking a Moroccan tailfeather as well as Mr. Amine shimmy shoulders Benali and his grandmother dancing with her grandson.